Heretofore, in producing wool or synthetic textile fiber slivers and spinning yarns with open-end spinning machines, the usual process and apparatus utilized include the following. A two cylinder compact carding machine was provided for carding stock material and producing two slivers by splitting the ultimate carded web produced down the middle. The thus produced slivers were first fed to a conventional textile roller or pin drafting machine or other type of drafting machines which receive approximately ten of these carded slivers and doubled and drafted these ten slivers into one sliver. Approximately three of the thus doubled and drafted slivers were then fed to a second roller or pin drafting machine for doubling and drafting these three slivers into one sliver for use in spinning yarn in an open-end spinning machine. These doubling and drafting operations were essential with the use of the compact cards for purposes of obtaining the desired uniform fiber distribution and weight in the ultimate sliver produced to satisfactorily spin yarn in an open-end spinning machine. The resulting sliver comprised a continuous length of carded and drafted textile fibers disposed in an integrated mass and spun into yarn in an open-end spinning machine.
While the above described prior apparatus and process produced a desirable wool or synthetic sliver and an open-end spun yarn, the process and apparatus necessarily involved the use of a substantial amount of machines, a substantial labor force for operating and maintaining such machines, and was limited in its versatility in the staple length of fibers which could be processed. The compact carding machines are usually operated to card staple length wool or synthetic fibers generally between about four inches and eight inches and open-end spinning machines for wool and synthetic yarns usually operate on fibers of up to about six inches staple length.